1 Oct
2021
1 Oct
'21
5:04 p.m.
On 10/1/21 1:00 PM, Chuck Guzis<cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
Got a small batch (8) of Victor 9000 floppies, MSDOS
ca. 1985. I
really don't want to write a decoder for such a small batch--I've got
other things on the burner right now. Anyone want to take a crack at
transferring the data? (Funds available).
--Chuck
I don't have a Victor (looked for one for a while, and man, are they
heavy) because I have a couple of large-ish batch of disks here as well.
I read them and have "triangular," Chuck Peddle-esque images, but not
sure how to get something like mtools to understand a triangular image.
So I understand the motivation to just Kermit the files over to
something more sane. :-)
- David
1 Oct
1 Oct
5:25 p.m.
On 10/1/21 5:04 PM, David Schmidt via cctalk wrote:
On 10/1/21 1:00 PM, Chuck Guzis<cclist at
sydex.com> wrote:
That's basically it--I can read the transitions and probably figure out
the GCR, but the zoned recording is going to take some work--taken all
together, more work than I'm willing to put in for a one-time job. I've
got some pressing medical issues and don't really have the time to
dedicate for this.
A working Vicky would solve the problem, but I understand that not many
have survived in working condition. Funny--I used to pass the plant in
Scotts Valley off of highway 17 on my way to the coast.
--Chuck
Got a small batch (8) of Victor 9000 floppies,
MSDOS ca. 1985.?? I
really don't want to write a decoder for such a small batch--I've got
other things on the burner right now.?? Anyone want to take a crack at
transferring the data??? (Funds available).
--Chuck
I don't have a Victor (looked for one for a while, and man, are they
heavy) because I have a couple of large-ish batch of disks here as well.
?I read them and have "triangular," Chuck Peddle-esque images, but not
sure how to get something like mtools to understand a triangular image.
?So I understand the motivation to just Kermit the files over to
something more sane. :-) 
5:34 p.m.
Hi Chuck,
I have a working Victor 9000 dual floppy configuration and a dingle
floppy/hard disk configuration but I'm in Canada. I've tried to image
disks with a Kryoflux but have not figured out how to image disks to the
point of being able to re-create them. The only way I have been able to
reproduce diskettes is to make copies on the Victor 9000 itself and that is
on the dual diskette version only, if I recall correctly. If there is any
way I can help, I'd be happy to try.
Santo
On Fri, Oct 1, 2021 at 8:25 PM Chuck Guzis via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
On 10/1/21 5:04 PM, David Schmidt via cctalk wrote:
On 10/1/21 1:00 PM, Chuck Guzis<cclist at
sydex.com> wrote:
That's basically it--I can read the transitions and probably figure out
the GCR, but the zoned recording is going to take some work--taken all
together, more work than I'm willing to put in for a one-time job. I've
got some pressing medical issues and don't really have the time to
dedicate for this.
A working Vicky would solve the problem, but I understand that not many
have survived in working condition. Funny--I used to pass the plant in
Scotts Valley off of highway 17 on my way to the coast.
--Chuck
Got a small batch (8) of Victor 9000 floppies,
MSDOS ca. 1985. I
really don't want to write a decoder for such a small batch--I've got
other things on the burner right now. Anyone want to take a crack at
transferring the data? (Funds available).
--Chuck
I don't have a Victor (looked for one for a while, and man, are they
heavy) because I have a couple of large-ish batch of disks here as well.
I read them and have "triangular," Chuck Peddle-esque images, but not
sure how to get something like mtools to understand a triangular image.
So I understand the motivation to just Kermit the files over to
something more sane. :-) 
20 Nov
20 Nov
11:35 a.m.
That's basically it--I can read the transitions
and probably figure out
the GCR, but the zoned recording is going to take some work--taken all
together, more work than I'm willing to put in for a one-time job. I've
got some pressing medical issues and don't really have the time to
dedicate for this.
samdisk can decode Victor 9000 images. It's hard for me to fully test because neither
of my Victors will boot from floppy and the hard disk I have seems to have been wiped. But
the original disks that I've read using scp do seem to mostly decode. They don't
boot in MAME though. To decode using samdisk:
samdisk copy --scale 120 -c0-79 v9k-dos.scp v9k-dos.raw
To convert the raw sector output from samdisk to a triangular image that is MAME
compatible requires two more steps:
v9k-raw2img-fixed.pl v9k-dos.raw v9k-dos.img
dd if=v9k-dos.img bs=512 count=1224 of=v9k-dos.mame
v9k-raw2img-fixed.pl can be found here:
https://forum.system-cfg.com/viewtopic.php?p=172637&sid=bc421b364200410…
The point I'm at with trying to get my Victors working is to see if I can get a good
sector image that will boot in MAME, so I I know I have a good working image and can get a
better idea of what files are needed for booting. Then I can either somehow dump the RAM
out of MAME and poke it directly into the Victor via serial boot (I was able to verify
serial boot is possible) or somehow poke it in using my Fluke 9010. From there I'll
need to probably write some diagnostics to try to figure out what is wrong with the floppy
drives. Then eventually I could create a new .scp using my floppur project from a sector
image that boots in MAME.
--
Follow me on twitter: @FozzTexx
Check out my blog: http://insentricity.com
RetroBattlestations.com
12:08 p.m.
On 11/20/21 11:35 AM, fozztexx--- via cctalk wrote:
samdisk can decode Victor 9000 images. It's hard for me to fully test because neither
of my Victors will boot from floppy and the hard disk I have seems to have been wiped. But
the original disks that I've read using scp do seem to mostly decode. They don't
boot in MAME though. To decode using samdisk:
samdisk copy --scale 120 -c0-79 v9k-dos.scp v9k-dos.raw
To convert the raw sector output from samdisk to a triangular image that is MAME
compatible requires two more steps:
v9k-raw2img-fixed.pl v9k-dos.raw v9k-dos.img
dd if=v9k-dos.img bs=512 count=1224 of=v9k-dos.mame
v9k-raw2img-fixed.pl can be found here:
https://forum.system-cfg.com/viewtopic.php?p=172637&sid=bc421b364200410…
The point I'm at with trying to get my Victors working is to see if I can get a good
sector image that will boot in MAME, so I I know I have a good working image and can get a
better idea of what files are needed for booting. Then I can either somehow dump the RAM
out of MAME and poke it directly into the Victor via serial boot (I was able to verify
serial boot is possible) or somehow poke it in using my Fluke 9010. From there I'll
need to probably write some diagnostics to try to figure out what is wrong with the floppy
drives. Then eventually I could create a new .scp using my floppur project from a sector
image that boots in MAME.
After looking around, I figured that I might as well do the coding. So
I did; customer is happy and I'm happy.
--Chuck
885
days inactive
934
days old
4 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
-
cclist＠sydex.com -
david4602＠gmail.com -
fozztexx＠fozztexx.com -
santo.nucifora＠gmail.com